wow, i've never read a thread where villager was so excited about a new guitar!
congrats, looks fantastic

That's probably because this is a truly exiting guitar. It has just about everything that jams the little voice of reason living in a guitar loving mind, making you spend a little fortune for it if need be - a beautiful guitar certainly made right by the right company, promising soooo much excellent craftmanship and value, being rare as hell and at any rate still a bargain compared to lesser guitars made in much bigger numbers by a certain company in the US of A. Congratulation on this guitar, villager!

Congrats Mark,
You did outbid me for this beastie - this is the first ES-200 I have seen for sale in over 30 years.
I have seen photos of only 2 others ( 1 x black, 1 x Dark S'burst) but this is the VF finish made from cashew oil.
The fingerboard looks to be rosewood though instead of ebony. It may be Macassar Ebony which can have brown streaks through it but the LS-100 had Madagascar Ebony which is pure black and I expected the ES-200 to do the same. As it was Order Only, the original client may have requested Rosewood . . .
I believe you are correct that this is the rarest of all the Vintage Tokai and my congratulations to you.

Peter Mac

PS: On a finer note, the ES-200 was first released in MY1982 (Sept 1981) If you look at Page 8, Vol 5 1982 Catalogue, you will see the exact guitar in the photo. As this one is sporting a very early 1981 serial number, this MAY HAVE been the actual guitar used in the photo. No proof - just adding the dots together . . . . very hard to tell if the top is birdseye as CMYK printing doesn't show much detail._________________The world will not end today...because it is already tomorrow in Australia.